Not a bad night of you have money on England win/draw the series and Ben Stokes to be player of the series.
Good cricket all round.
Not a bad night of you have money on England win/draw the series and Ben Stokes to be player of the series.
Good cricket all round.
Don't you hate how polar the English are?
Two days ago they wanted this lot strung up with up to 8 changes for the next test, now they are asking for them all to get MBE's.
Steve Smith is a machine.
I can't recall a batsmen who consistently made runs under pressure like Smith does. In absolute terms he's not even close to the skill of Viv Richards with the bat, nor does he have Bradman's average - but there's absolutely no way either of them had the guts and determination of Smith to consistently dig deep and pull a team out of the shit and into a winning position.
THose two were also surrounded by quality batsmen who could support them - Smith pretty much lines up knowing that if he doesn't make runs it's unlikely anyone else will.
Last edited by The Dunster; 06-09-2019 at 10:45 AM.
For grit also add S Waugh, J Langer, A Border. Would wear 100 round trophies to stay in. But today Smith is basically holding the batting side by himself
Biggest myth in world cricket history. Not even the best player in his family.
Had to make the huge captaincy calls of throwing the ball to either McGrath or Warne.
Was seen as tough because he could block out his end to enable Gilchrist to do the real heavy lifting in the middle order.
Took a nice catch once, owned a red blow rag.
**** Steve Waugh.
Personally I've come to the view that Steve Waugh is a great example of how "good" batsmen can be effective via different skillsets. I think his brother was a more technically proficient and talented batsmen, definitely appeared that way to the casual observer. Yet Steve averaged roughly 10 runs more per innings at Test level. Rarely looked very flashy or anything, but perhaps had more determination or stronger concentration / mental side.
As an aside, that to me is one of the downfalls (to me) of the T20 cricket, there's no value placed on those skillsets of essentially making no mistakes during an innings. More value is placed on having a good eye and being able to improvise. Entertaining in its own way, but quite different.
oh he was a perfectly servicable cricketer. you need to be really really good to play for your country.
but this revisionist bullshit about his toughness always gets me.
dont worry though, for some reason Warner (who has been trash for ages, and inconsistent his whole career, and oh, a massive bellend and cheat) somehow escapes the criticism that has applied to Khawaja his whole test life. add to that the likes of Handscombe, the Fat lad from Queensland who played a couple tests, Marnus (aint touching that last name) and about 40 other middle order aspirants.
Aussie cricket needs a good marketing tool, and if you dont have a tag line attached to you like 'gritty' or 'swashbuckling' then you are disposable.
Steve Waugh had that luxury and good on him. but he couldnt tie the shoelaces of 80% of the blokes he played with back then.
Waugh played against some of the best bowling in history - namely The West Indies when they cared about cricket and Pakistan when they had the two fastest bowlers in the world who put reverse swing on the map.
He used to hook the ball a lot as a young bloke but after a year or two in the Australian team he started playing a less aggressive style of cricket - both as a batsmen and later as a captain.
He wasn't someone I enjoyed watching either - but much like Boycott it's hard to argue against his talent with the bat or ball for that matter.
I was playing in England in 1989, Waugh's big breakout series - managed to see some of it live.
The English were more fearful of him and spoke of him in the same tones as they are now of Smith.
Could be a khunt but respect, it's what we needed at the time as we were poo in the previous 10 years.
And there's another VAR fk up...
Fat phuck has 2 England reviews. Starc has it right on leg. No fat finger up. Must be up his @rse...or Roots?
You are dead set talking complete and utter BS now Plague
Can't believe no one has called you out on it either
Steve Waugh was the epitome of what you want from a cricketer
If you needed a bloke to bat to save your life then you would pick this bloke.
The amount of times he got runs when his country needed them and when he eked out hundreds by batting with the tail defies belief
Yeah his bro had more natural talent no doubt. But Steve got the job done so much so his Average is massively superior to Mark
You forgetting his 200 in West Indies to finally dethrone them
You forgetting his 2 centuries on a green top with Aus 1-0 down in the Ashes and in deep shit when he came to the crease
You forgetting his 100 no in the 99 WC when he single handedly got us into the Semi and we won that in a tie to go through
Yep you talking complete and utter shit
His captaincy was pretty good too
Much better than Smith and Ponting and AB
But behind Tubby and Clarke for me